Bertrand Copigneaux
Hi everyone,
Today we introduce a video of one of the first result following our buy-out by the Optis Group. The application presented bellow was a shared development between Optis and SimplySim for the Laval Virtual tradeshow (which took place at the beginning of April).
The demo is a prototype of a headlamp simulator. The goal of this application is to test and validate car headlamps before production. The Simulator is build on top of the SimplyCube simulation engine and integrates Optis realistic rendering for light and materials, to guarantee that the simulator can be used to take actual production decision on headlamps (in the video bellow, notice the “false color” mode that gives accurate information on the level of lightning of each point in the environment).
The simulator is built around a driving loop that present different situation that can be interesting to test headlamps: different road materials, street lightning (thanks to the simplycube deferred shading technology we have about 200 dynamic light sources in the environment), reflective street furniture, tunnel, bumpers, countryside and city, end of day or night…
Several model of headlamp have been modeled with the ability to easily change between the headlamp model, and set low beam / high beam mode (there is no limit on the number of different headlamp we can test in the application). All the light models, and all the materials used in the environment have been developed by Optis and are based on real measurement with the OMS devices. This technology, also developed by Optis, studies how light behave on a material to guarantee a simulation as accurate as it can be.
In the video above the Simulator runs on a standard PC, with a nice screen and a game interface for controls, however the SimplyCube is fully compatible with more advanced displays (multi-screens, stereo) and controls (full support of VRPN) so this application could be easily deployed in a more immersive virtual reality system.
Finally, you’ll also notice in the video that the headlamp move as the car turns, for this prototype we have modeled a very simple adaptive headlamp simulation, but thanks to the SimplyCube everything is made so that the simulator could be plugged to a real adaptive headlamp control system.
We’re proud to present you the first result of our new collaboration, and we have to thank the Optis team as it was a real pleasure to work together on this first project. Other projects are in progress we’ll showcase them here as soon as we can.
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Hi all,
It’s been way too long since we haven’t updated this blog, but the last months have been kept very busy both by our work on the SimplyCube (which is now technically ready) and some important evolution of the company… We are happy to announce that SimplySim is now becoming a subsidiary of the Optis group.
Optis is a French software editor that specializes on the scientific simulation of light and human vision within virtual reality environment. Its solutions allow designers, ergonomists and engineers to simulate and optimize lighting performance, product appearance as well as the visibility and legibility of information on Human Machine Interfaces, in a fully-immersive environment. With more than 20 years of experience, and more than 1600 customers in 36 countries worldwide and in many industries (automotive, aerospace, electronics, defense…), Optis is a leader in physically correct simulations.
This buy-out makes sense for us for many reasons, first and foremost the technological complementarities. Realism in 3D simulation has been the core of our R&D since the creation of SimplySim, and the basis of the SimplyCube. The physically correct approach developed by Optis for their light simulations was therefore a key point of interest for us. The fact that they have been investing over the past four years in real time 3D versions of their technologies made the link between our innovations even more attractive.
Of course Optis also brings us its stability and its experience as a software editor; this will help us to launch the SimplyCube in the best conditions available. This is also the result of a meeting, when we met Jacques Delacour (CEO and president of Optis) we realized that we shared not only a common history as entrepreneurs but also the same vision for the development of our industry and the same projects for our companies.
This buy out is a very promising opportunity. We’ve already started to integrate our technologies, and the first results were visible last week at the Laval Virtual (we’ll post some video of that soon). We have many projects for the innovations that will come from the meeting our technologies and we will announce some of it in the coming months. Of course this means we’ll continue to develop products and services around the SimplyCube platform. So stay tuned to this blog, where we will continue to announce and showcase our innovations.
Read the full official press release here.
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First in the name of everyone at SimplySim, I’d like to wish you a happy new year. In 2011 we wish you success and happiness in your professional and personal life.
Today we introduce a new innovation of the SimplyCube: a Kinect controller. The SimplyCube enables you to rapidly and easily create your 3D application, and now you can add a Kinect controller. This new controller enables you to directly control your application with gestures.
The first two prototypes we’re showing in the video above represent only a first preview of the possibilities offered by this technology. From product presentation applications to motion capture, medical applications, education, simulations, or serious games… the possibilities of application are only limited by our imagination.
Stay tuned to our blog, twitter and YouTube channel to discover other innovations in 2011.
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We believe that 3D on the mobile platform has a lot of to offer for many applications. We’ve clearly been impressed by the Windows Phone 7 platform, and based on the positive feedback on our first Windows Phone 7 application; we’ve decided to port the SimplyCube 3D engine to Windows Phone 7.
The process of creating a 3D application using the SimplyCube will be exactly the same, regardless of the platform; the difference will only be made at the end of the process, when the scene is exported. Other platform will be added later on (Web browser based version, Xbox360, …).
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Today we introduce a new video about the technical capacities of the SimplyCube 3D engine. To benchmark our engine, we’ve asked our graphic designers to create a scene that would require all the real-time 3D techniques available in the SimplyCube. The video bellow is the result of this project.
Let me give you a bit more details on this video and the 3D techniques available in the SimplyCube and seen in this video:
Deferred Shading
The deferred shading technique enables you to have as many dynamic light sources as you want in a real time 3D application. In fact deferred shading is a way to render the 3D scene (the usual way is called “forward shading”, in the SimplyCube both are available). With the “forward shading” you can render up to 6 lights in a scene, here using “deferred shading” we have more than 500 light sources in the scene, with little to no effect on the performance.
Volumetric lighting
Volumetric lighting is a technique that gives more relief to a light source, by showing beams of light shinning threw the environment. This technique (used in the video above for the projectors of the helicoters or the fire inside the barrels) can also be used to show the sunbeams for example in an indoor environment or even the dust in a room.
The scene with (right) and without (left) volumetric lighting
Global illumination
Another important lighting technique used here: global illumination enables indirect lighting. This means that any object in the environment reflects a part of the light that it receives to all the objects nearby. The lighting of the scene is therefore a lot closer to reality.
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
Ambient occlusion is a shading technique used to add realism to models by taking into account the attenuation of light due to occlusion (corners of a room, irregularity of meshes …). A lot of 3D engines need baked ambient occlusion maps (generated by authoring tools). Here we use screen space techniques which allow ambient occlusion to be fully dynamic with absolutely no pre-computations.
A view of the ambient occlusion generated (right)
Gamma correctness
One of the most important things if you want realistic rendering is to manage lighting as close to reality as possible. But the nonlinear properties of almost all capture and display devices make it hard to achieve (the picture you take with your camera and you display on your LCD screen necessarily has biased color curves). To correct this behavior, the SimplyCube automatically rectifies the gamma of input textures and render target to perform lighting in linear space resulting in a more realistic rendering.
A view of the scene with (right) and without (left) the gamma correction
Glow, distorter, color correction, depth of field…
As you see in the video a lot of other 3D techniques are used in this environment, each one should deserve an entire blog post just to explain what it is and how it can be used. For example we’ve used the “Glow” technique to enhance the neon effects on the sign in the street, we’ve used “Distorters” to simulate the heat wave coming from the fire and thus distorting the image, and we’ve used “color correction” to change the whole ambiance of the scene by adjusting the colors (high/medium/low tones, hue, saturation and contrast).
Physics
It’s also important to note that this scene is not only graphic, it also use physics. Any object that you see moving in the environment is subject to the laws of physics, and can collide with other objects. Several physics engine can be used indifferently (the choice of the physics engine is made at runtime) with the SimplyCube. Here we’re using Nvidia PhysX.
Curves and Controllers
An easy way to create movements in a scene (moving objects, camera scrolling) is to define curves and attach objects to it. That’s exactly what we did for this demo:
- The camera is moving along a curve, looking at another curve
- The helicopters and other flying objects are following their own curve
- We even have procedurally generated curves for the background cars running on the highway
Hardware configuration
Finally a few words on the hardware configuration used to render this scene in real-time 3D. For this video the scene was running on a Core2 Duo E7600, 4GoRam, GeForce 260GTX at ~21Fps. Of course the SimplyCube can be used with lower (or upper) hardware configurations, depending on the complexity of the scene.
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Hello everyone,
Today we’re introducing something a bit different from what we usually see on this blog: a Windows Phone 7 3D application:
Microsoft France recently launched a challenge of Windows Phone 7 applications (the prize is an occasion to demo the application in front of Steve Ballmer and a few other high profile CEOs). As we thought that such a meeting could be interesting and as we had an idea of a potential application, we decided to give it a try. This was also a good occasion to see what was possible on this new platform.
Our “Interactive 3D assembly manual” is designed to replace furniture assembly instructions. 3D gives a real advantage in this kind of application as you can really see the instructions from the exact angle you need; and the fact that the application runs on a phone makes it very accessible. This is of course only a first prototype (which was developed in a few days), a more complete application would probably include the ability to directly download the 3D model from the internet by just scanning the barcode of the furniture you’ve just bought.
If you like this application and want to vote for it, the contest is on facebook (Please click the “like” button under the facebook video). As said before, this was only a first try, but we do believe in the potential of these new platforms (phones, tablets…), and eventually we plan to make SimplyCube applications compatible with them.
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Real-time 3D can be used in almost every industry and for a very large number of applications. If you’re familiar with this blog you’ve already seen examples of simulation and training applications. Another field that we think is very interesting and has a huge potential for growth is real-time 3D marketing. In today’s video, we introduce a simple 3D marketing application that we designed in only a few days using the SimplyCube.
As you can see in the video above most of the basic features of a 3D marketing application are available in this sample. The real-time 3D presentation enables the customer to get a better understanding of what the product looks like and how it behaves. The application also allows showing several configurations on the product (color / features) which can be more convenient to show through a 3D application than with a real product. If at first, this kind of application seems most interesting for products that are highly customizable and difficult to show (cars, boats, luxury products, large furniture, household electrical appliances…) it could be in fact adapted to any kind of product.
An interesting aspect of this application is that, thanks to the SimplyCube, it is easily customizable to any product with little to no programming needed. Once you have a 3D model of the product, you just have to import it in the toolbox to define the possibilities of interaction using the “SimplyPhysics” module, so the application is able to use it! What you may want to do is to design the graphic interface to present the product in the right color chart. As the application is based on Microsoft WPF this is easily done even for a non programmer using Expression Blend.
This is of course just a rapid case study on an application developed in only a few days, but it demonstrates interesting possibility in this field. A more advanced version of the application would probably include new ways of interaction: touch screen interface (ideal for presenting the product on a booth in a store), stereoscopic 3D vision (for a better grasp of the product), or for example a Wii-like based controller (a good way to present the application in front of an audience). The SimplyCube is designed to make all these possibilities available.
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Since we’ve created the company, about two years ago now, we’ve learned a lot through experience and advise from all those that believed in our project and supported us. As we’re now aiming at new developments for our company (including the release of our first product), we have decided to strengthen our team with a small group of experts in our field who will support us with advices. The advisory board will meet every quarter to talk about our company strategy. This is an important step in the growth of our company, and therefore I’d like to introduce the members of our advisory board:
Annie Blandel
Annie Blandel is a strategy adviser to European and international SMEs and a professor in marketing for Master’s in IT & Project Management at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis (France). She has also contributed to the formation of a services incubator in France.
The cornerstones of Annie Blandel 25 year’s career in technology marketing have been to support entrepreneurship, recognise and drive forward innovative new products and services, and enable international expansion.
Annie started her career in 1982 as a software engineer, before becoming European Business Development Manager in 1993 at Digital. She then joined Shiva, leader in remote access technologies, as their International Marketing Director. In 1997 she founded CARNAC, her own international marketing agency with offices in London (UK) and Sophia-Antipolis (France).
Annie is a member of Sophia Business Angels, Initmarketing, and the Institute of Directors (IOD, London UK).
We met Annie about a year ago at a Sophia Business Angels meeting, and since then she has been regularly following our project, and supporting us with her advice.
Julien Codorniou
Julien Cordorniou is Director of Development and Partnerships at Microsoft France.
After being a consultant for Ernst and Young, focusing on software companies, and working with ETF Group, a Swiss VC firm. Julien joined Microsoft France in 2005 to launch emerging businesses activities, partnering with VCs and ISV. He launched the IDEES program designed to identify and help high potential software companies in France. In 2008, Julien moved to Microsoft Corp to replicate the French program success and direct Microsoft Corp’s efforts to partner with hi-potential software companies around the world (through the BizSpark Program). Julien came back to France in 2010 to take the lead of the Development and Partnerships team.
Julien is co-author of the book “Ils ont réussi leur start-up! Les dessous de la success story Kelkoo”. Edited by Pearson, October 2005.
We met Julien in September 2007 at the final of the « Challenge Jeunes Pousses ». This was the first step toward the creation of SimplySim, and Julien was the first to recognize the potential of our innovations. We quickly joined the Microsoft IDEES program, and he invited us to Microsoft Corp headquarters in Redmond to meet with the Microsoft teams.
Dan Newman
Dan Newman is Managing Partner at Cross Atlantic Advisory and Cross Atlantic Ventures. In addition, he is also a Venture Partner within the Technology Team at Sofinnova Partners (Paris).
He serves as a Board member and member of various Advisory Boards in a range of technology sectors in both the US and France. Prior to Cross Atlantic, Dan was a Consultant and Project Leader with several international consulting firms including Lochridge & Company (1986-91), Tenex Consulting (1992-93) and SMG (1994-97). He brings more than 25 years of venture capital, strategy consulting, and hands-on management experience to his portfolio companies and Advisory Boards
We’ve recently been introduced to Dan thanks to Annie Blandel.
Dominique Pouliquen
Dominique Pouliquen, is currently Product Manager for reality capture technologies inside Autodesk, the worldwide leader in 2D and 3D CAD software, with its headquarters in California, USA. M. Pouliquen is also acting as the site manager for Autodesk R&D center in Sophia Antipolis, France.
Autodesk bought REALVIZ in May 2008, a company that Dominique co-founded in March 1998 from a technology transfer with INRIA (National Research Institute for Computer Sciences and Automatics). He was CEO of this company for 10 years, developing its image-based content creation software business in the special effects and digital imaging markets all over the world.
Dominique has spent his career in the computer graphics industry after graduating as an Engineer from Ecole Superieure d’Electronique de l’Ouest, Angers, France in 1986.
We’ve met Dominique for the first time in early 2008 thanks to the Incubateur Paca Est, and since then we’ve met in many local events.
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As announced before, SimplySim will be present at the Laval Virtual 2010. The Laval Virtual is the first European event dedicated to enhanced and virtual reality, real time 3D and interactive techniques and takes place in Laval France (1 hour and a half from Paris in TGV) from April 7th to April 11th 2010. This year is the 12th edition of the tradeshow, and SimplySim first participation. The entrance is free during the professional day as long you have an invitation … invitation that we are happy to provide right here.
The Laval Virtual will be the first public presentation of the editors of the SimplyCube. The SimplyEdit, SimplyPhysic and SimplyShader are easy to use tools designed to help you create rapidly any professional 3D application: simulations, serious games, marketing applications, video games…
First preview of the SimplyEdit, SimplyCube's 3D scene edition tool
We will also present our latest demo created using the SimplyCube 3D simulation engine and editors: our UAV Demo, our robotics simulation demo, our underwater demo, and a new “Nanorobot demo” (if you follow @VB_Simply3D you only have an idea of what to expect for this one…).
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When we launched our beta a little more than a month ago, one of our main expectations was to see how people will review and comment our product. We’ve received recently a first in depth review of the beta by a PhD student at the Department of Computing of the Imperial College of London. To let you judge by yourself here is the conclusion of the review:
“The tool claims to be “The easiest tool to create real-time 3d software”, this beta release is a first step at this. It provides a good SDK for a rendering engine with physics. This provides some novel features such as the support for multiple physics engines in the same application and a nice Day/Night lighting system. The SDK looks like a good stepping stone to an intuitive user interface. Which is due in a future release. The engine is meant to support robotics and simulations however the beta currently gives limited intuition on how will it fulfils this role.
In summary this is an interesting product since it leverages and extends a number technically competent products from Microsoft namely the .Net framework in C#, Microsoft’s Robotics Studio and the XNA Games Studio. This provides a good starting point and it will be interesting to see how this product develops.”
Click to read the full report (PDF)
This first independent review comes as a support for our SimplyCube, because although only a fraction of the final product has been tested (the editors are not yet available in the beta), the strong points highlighted by the review are the one we’ve been working for:
- An easy to use 3D real time simulation SDK
- A multi-physics engine, physics simulation
- Advanced 3D rendering with post processing and lightning effects
The product continues to evolve, and as I said in last week’s post the next step is a series of demos showing a more advanced use of the engine. Of course, if you want to get a better idea of what our product is worth, register for the beta and test the product by yourself! And if you make your own review of our product, we’ll be glad to post it here.
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